


Stone Courage

by devilinthedetails



Series: The Justified [5]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Battle of Beruna, Forgiveness, Gen, Healing, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25514452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Edmund has a strategy for fighting the White Witch.
Series: The Justified [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816363
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Stone Courage

Stone Courage

The night before the final battle against the White Witch, Edmund found it hard to sleep. He didn’t toss and turn but laid as still as a stone statue in the courtyard of the Witch’s castle, not wanting to wake Peter who slept in the blankets beside him, staring at the dark canvas tent top. At least, he had believed that Peter was asleep until Peter whispered, “Do you wish you’d gotten a sword and shield from Father Christmas as I had?”

Once Edmund would have interpreted that question as an invitation to spiteful envy, but after his time of suffering as a captive of the White Witch, he now understood it instead as an expression of concern and even empathy from his older brother.

“No.” Edmund’s voice was quiet as Peter’s had been. “I might not have gotten a gift from Father Christmas, but I still got greater presents than I could’ve asked for—I got Aslan’s forgiveness and was taken back in by my family after I betrayed you all.”

In the blackness of the tent with his brother breathing beside him, Edmund got a lump in his throat as he recalled how Aslan had gazed at him with such seriousness as if he were someone trustworthy rather than a traitor of his own kid. The lump swelled to even larger, almost painful, proportions when he remembered how his siblings had welcomed him back into the warm fold of their family without a bitter word. They’d looked at him with so much love as if he’d never forsaken them for Turkish Delight and a chance to rule Narnia after the White Witch. All of them had shown him a mercy he still couldn’t comprehend and he would always feel an enduring gratitude to them that was too strong to be expressed in words.

Because they had forgiven him his treason, he thought he could be courageous and self-sacrificing in the battle against the White Witch the next day. He had a sword and a shield—not as glorious as the ones Peter had received from Father Christmas, but ones of solid, shiny Narnian steel that could destroy the minions of the White Witch—and he was determined to wield them in the cause of righteousness after too long being the tool of evil.

More than his sword and shield, he had a grim strategy born from witnessing in terrifying firsthand the devastation the Witch wrought with her wand that turned creatures to stone. That was why he had resolved to himself with iron-cold certainty that if fate brought him face-to-face with her in tomorrow’s battle, he would target her wand instead of her. It was the wand that made her such a fearsome foe. Without her wand, she could do much less damage to her enemies. That was the lesson Edmund had learned as her unhappy hostage.

The next day, at the Battle of Beruna, he did indeed find himself fighting the Witch face-to-face. When he saw her cursing creatures to stone all around him, he had gritted his teeth as an overwhelming, unstoppable force overtook him, allowing him to press through three towering ogres guarding the Witch just as she was about to turn one of Aslan’s lieutenant leopards into a stone statue. When he reached her, he took advantage of what he realized might be his one chance to destroy her wand, he lifted his sword high and then brought it smashing like a cresting wave down on her sword, which shattered under the pressure.

He had the satisfaction of seeing the shock flare on her milk-pale face—she hadn’t expected him to attack her wand rather than her—before her sword sliced into him, and he collapsed to the ground, wounded.

Pain deeper than anything he could have imagined burned in him. Then, before he could begin to wonder if he was dying, the deep pain became a darkness that almost felt like mercy as his entire world was swallowed by black.

In the midnight blackness of the void behind his eyelids, he floated through timelessness. He could have floated there for a heartbeat or for a century before a sliver of light pierced the darkness. Following that sliver of light, he opened his eyes to discover that the battle was over, the Witch had been vanquished, and Lucy had revived him with her healing cordial from Father Christmas.

Edmund had never come so close to dying—he believed in his blood and bones that only Lucy’s cordial had prevented him from perishing—but somehow he had never felt so alive as he did after the Battle of Beruna ended. He should’ve been exhausted, but somehow he was hopeful. He felt himself shining inside and outside in the sunlight because he had been healed in both body and spirit. He had been loved beyond his understanding and because of that he had been able to be brave beyond his imagination. He believed he would never known such triumph as he tasted now. This was his pinnacle as a person.


End file.
